Commentary
There is no such thing as a free lunch. So goes the saying. Someone always has to pay.
The question is only—who and when?
This is a truism based on our experience as a society over millennia of generations.
Similarly, there is no such thing as a four-day week with no diminution in income without someone paying and paying dearly.
Wages need, as of necessity, to be linked to productivity to be sustainable. High wages are inflationary unless linked to productivity.
In the Howard era, real wages rose by 19 percent without inflationary pressures because the government and employers drove productivity reforms….